Belle

Amma Asante(2013)

Review

Our Score

by Damon Wise

It's hard to imagine the true story of Britain's first mixed-race aristocrat being told more elegantly than in this warm and often very funny period piece, which brings a subtle political gravitas to its central fairy-tale romance. The title character, Dido Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), is the illegitimate child of a slave and a nobleman, and is fetched from the slums of Bristol docks by her father in the film's opening moments. He recognises Dido as his heir, and she is taken to live with her great uncle, Lord Mansfield (Tom Wilkinson), at London's Kenwood House, where she is introduced to a life of luxury. When she comes of age, however, Dido is alerted to the injustices of the world by her guardian's apprentice, the serious but charismatic law student John Davinier (Sam Reid). The horror of slavery is addressed, as are many other issues, but Belle does so from a place of hope and love, expanding the Georgian world of Jane Austen while delivering all the wit and spectacle of top-flight costume drama.

Summary

Premiere. The illegitimate mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy admiral is raised in the household of her great uncle, but is never entirely accepted in Georgian British society. She falls in love with an idealistic lawyer, and together they campaign against the slave trade. Fact-based period drama, starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Tom Wilkinson and Emily Watson.